Where to Begin

I feel like I have gotten ahead of myself. I've blogged about a few things as they have come to mind but I think of something to write about almost every time that I am cleaning my house or cooking a meal because I have made changes in so many areas. I feel like I need to start from the beginning before I start throwing all sorts of information at you. I'll back up to when I started and we'll work through this together. First, let me help you with some steps you can take. You don't have to change everything over night.

1. Research You will never know what changes to make and what is best for your family if you don't do some research. If this is a really interesting topic for you, like it is for me, there is more information out there than you will ever be able to get through. But for others, you want to make a change but don't have a whole lot of time to spend researching. There is nothing wrong with either way. If you're looking for the simple route, limit the information you let yourself take in. Find a few blogs (there are tons out there!) and see if you can get any useful information from them. If you want to, read through a few books over time. I would love to share some of the books I've been reading. I will be doing reviews of them just like In Defense of Food so you can learn more about them that way.

2. Share the load Don't do it alone. These health/environment/money saving changes are so popular right now. Start talking to your friends and tell them what your interested in learning. Maybe someone else has the same interest! Don't feel like you have to find all of your own information. We chose our dog food based on what a friend fed her dog. She is an avid animal lover and health nut and had done her research and could tell me all about it and where to buy it. All it took was a conversation with her, not days of research. We also bought a juicer based on the research that my parents did. I didn't have to go and find all of the information for myself. Find people you trust and make this something fun to do together.

3. Ban the worst things first With some basic knowledge and a little bit of reading you will quickly learn what changes need to be made first. Something that MIGHT cause minor irritation is much less important than things that contain formaldehyde (aerosol cans), a KNOWN human carcinogen (cancer causing). My next post will be a list of some of the changes that we made first so be watching for that.

4. Replace as you run out Once you get rid of the things that you can't stand to have in your house for another day, take a deep breath (preferably outside where the air is cleaner) and slow things down. As you run out of cleaners, toiletry products, and food items, replace with a healthier choice. When you run out of flour, buy whole wheat flour or unbleached, unbromated white flour. When you run out of deodorant, make your own! (Yes, it works!) This means that you just have to research things one at a time and little by little. It makes the task much less daunting. Again, I’ll be making some suggestions along these lines in future posts.

I have a feeling that our lifestyle will continue to change slowly for the rest of our lives as we discover and experiment with new things. Don't get overwhelmed with it. Just do what you can do and know that each little change you make is making an impact on your health. Don't worry about what has already been done, but think about what it will mean for your health to not use that in the future. God made our bodies remarkable and able to heal themselves. Stop putting the bad in and your body will have less to fight. Take time to focus on the positive changes you have made and it will keep you from getting overwhelmed.